


the ocean from above

by ohnomydear



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Batman71, Batman71AU, Friendship, Gen, Major Spoilers, Minor Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Not A Fix-It, Tim Drake-centric, Young Justice - Freeform, fix this Tom King, morehurtthancomfort, rating for minor language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 17:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohnomydear/pseuds/ohnomydear
Summary: At some point after the incident on the roof, Tim had to go back to Young Justice, lost in the multiverse, and try to move forward. A post-Batman #71 oneshot.





	the ocean from above

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Batsgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsgirl/gifts).

> I wrote most of this on a plane (hence the title) to/from/after SDCC and continuing through this weekend, because I was mad/confused by Batman #71. 
> 
> **Major spoilers through Batman #79 and Young Justice #8 (i.e. current/September 2019 issues).**
> 
> It's a one-shot. Good Lord, I am trying so hard not to start any more long Batfics. If you aren’t caught up on the comics, it might be a little tricky to follow. It's also not... happy? Like... it's just not? It's hard to market? I wrote it for anybody like me who is desperate for any kind of way to address it if King doesn't? 
> 
> Notes:  
-Tim/Steph is not a huge presence, but it is canon in YJ, so it’s here.  
-The fic is for @Batsgirl, who told me in a ‘never be’ comment that they’d like to see an AU on #71 aftermath. Thank you for suggesting, and here is nearly 10k+ of more angst than you probably wanted and are under no obligation to read. :)

Connor kicked at the base of the raised dais, the impact barely making it through to his toes through the steel-toed boot. Young Justice had been stranded in yet another multiverse, this one populated by towering blue aliens who kept looking at him like a new variety of fish. He had put up with it because, like most every other race, they had _seemed_ intelligent about the multiverse. Seemed confident they could get the displaced team home. 

That had been what he thought when they met the aliens (‘Quinnis,’ Robin kept reminding him, ‘they’re called Quinnis’), two hours ago and about two klicks into the woods to the east. It amazed Connor how hopeful the team was; every time they landed in yet another multiverse, they thought they were going to meet someone friendly who would be happy to get them home, which had never happened. He felt like the perpetual Debbie Downer of the group, bracing himself for yet another multiverse adventure even as the kids flooded out of the truck like it was a damn clown car. This time, he gave up and let them roam while Robin got the details from the Quinnis about how they were getting home this time. 

Things went south when his best friend started shaking his head, gesturing, making that ‘ooh, wait, no, I’m deeply uncomfortable with that’ face that Tim didn’t think he made. 

Connor gave up on keeping the rest of the team nearby before Tim even began walking back. Within seconds, half of the Young Justice team was tearing for the woods where Bart had already apprehended what looked like an elf – a legit _elf_, with short pants and a vaguely JK-Rowling-type face – and Amethyst making conversation with it. Naturally, all the Quinnis adopted an expression like they had eaten something foul. Oh God, Young Justice was going to get embroiled in some class warfare shit, weren’t they?

“Don’t tell me we’re stayin,” he told Robin.

“They use multiverse watches,” Robin said, raising a pacifying hand.

“And what does that mean?” Cassie asked, keeping one eye on them and one on the rest of YJ. “They don’t have enough?”

“No. Well… yes, but it also means we can test one before we send everyone.”

After the impassioned speech back with the Shazam-killing Superman, Connor would have thought Tim would do anything to get home ASAP and damn where they ended up along the way. 

But he let Tim have this. Robin wanted to go home and if he wanted to make a test run to make sure it was right, he could have his test run. Connor wasn’t going to be snarky about how long it had been since _he_ was home. Much.

Led by the representing Quinnis, the team had schlepped from the woods and the elves back to the ‘transit station,’ which was the size of the average art museum and contained at least as many rooms for Receiving and Departing persons. It reminded Connor of a subway, if the subway were operated by a bunch of blue aliens wearing special watches who could all come or go at will.

There was some concern about Robin going alone, mostly on Bart’s end. The Quinnis gurgled ‘oh, it’s quite safe, quite safe,’ working at their consoles well over most of the team’s heads, and began too-enthusiastically explaining the watches to Connor’s non-powered, hyperintelligent friend who fought supervillains with a _stick_. 

This left Connor in dais-kicking mode while Robin learned all about how this stupid watch worked and his geeky little heartrate climbed. Connor would never question Robin’s martial arts skills, but he would question the hell out of Tim’s survival instincts. 

Connor’s resulting scowl must have been apparent, because Robin came over and shoved his shoulder once he had learned all about the watches. 

“I’m coming back, geez. Look, I didn’t tell you, but I got an emergency communication some hours back and… there’s a batmergency in Gotham. If it’s happening, then a) it’s our universe and b) it wouldn’t be safe for the kids. I’ll deal with it and be right back for you guys.”

“Does everything you Bats do have to sound like some ‘last stand’ bullshit when you’re really just being selfish?” Connor replied. “Get outta here so we can all go home.”

Robin smirked and jogged up the Star Trek-looking steps onto the dais, hands lifted in another placating movement. 

“Sorry, but when you’ve saved the world as many times as I have…” Tim saved himself the trouble of finishing the sentence (or listening to a rebuttal) by hitting a button on the watch-like device. He vanished.

The Quinnis left after a couple of minutes, because multiverse travel took place all the time here and needed no special attention. Cassie and Amethyst were concerned about the elves and, since getting involved in political drama tended to be Amethyst’s favorite thing, they left soon after, taking the kids with them. Bart kept zipping in and out to see if Robin had returned yet. The third time it happened, Connor told him he would come find him when Tim got back. He loved Impulse, really, he did, but Bart could be a bit much. Especially in three-minute increments of ‘ishebackyet.’

“Call me if you need something smashed,” he told Bart, when the kid asked if he wanted to stay here or join them. Connor had spent enough time cultivating diplomacy on Gemworld and had no patience left for class warfare or its required preludes. 

Besides, he seriously doubted Tim was going to get back in the timeframe they’d allowed. 

So Connor wandered the ‘receiving area’ unattended, assessing the murals of blue aliens welcoming home other blue aliens, their many fin-like appendages wrapping around each other in an embrace, and noting the clear lack of elves in the murals. 

When he was done with admiring what passed for local art, he found the equivalent of a coffee bar – without coffee. Connor already planned to lead his coffee-addicted best friend over here, the moment Tim got back, and watch him figure out for himself that coffee wasn’t on the menu, only this purple sludge stuff. 

It appeared digestible and definitely sugar-based, which meant Bart would probably insist on drinking a bathtub-full. Connor sat, with his half-full cup of purple, Fruit-Loop-tasting sludge, and waited.

An hour later, Tim appeared on the dais, crumpled on his side. 

If the entirety of Young Justice hadn’t spent the first few minutes of every post-multiverse trip picking themselves up and trying to readjust their internal ‘who and where am I’ meters, Connor might have panicked then. 

“Miss a step?” he asked instead, pitching the last of the purple sludge-cup into a trash receptacle across the large space, and getting to his feet. Tim pushed himself up onto one arm, the other hand coming up shakily to his face. His bo had gone missing. 

Connor did not like this silhouette.

“You lose your staff?” Connor asked, allowing caution a place in his tone. It was a safe point of entry, if something had happened. Tim hadn’t been in Gotham in months; there could be a new villain, Jason Todd could have gone insane again, the city could’ve been leveled by some biochemical threat, he could’ve met up with Damian Wayne...

Tim scanned his area for the weapon, moving in a glazed, faintly jerky way and without moving the hand from his face. Maybe he’d been drugged. It would be nice if there were anything Connor could conceivably rule out, in their line of work, but there wasn’t, and he was beginning to get angry at whatever had happened. 

“Thought you knew to safely stow your carry-ons before hitting the ‘travel the multiverse’ button by now, Rob.” His feet carried him closer to the dais. Robin must be pulling himself together, because the moment Connor’s foot hit the first stair, Tim spoke:

“I didn’t hit it. Damian did.” 

Connor paused, coming to several potential conclusions. “He attack you?”

“No, that was Bruce.”

The conclusions screeched to a halt and tried to switch tracks, but there was no track for this. Connor had drawn close enough to see the fine tremor and _now_ he could recognize that the shuddering bassline he had written off as far-off alien music was actually Tim’s heartbeat. He stayed on the steps.

“So not our universe,” Connor said, snatching at the easiest conclusion. Tim didn’t respond. “Robin? Robin, it wasn’t our universe, right? Your dad wouldn’t actually—”

“Apparently he would.” This was usually the point where Robin would push himself to his feet, insist that the show must go on because Dick had taught him that, that everything would work itself out. He wasn’t moving. Correspondingly, Connor hadn’t moved from the first step. Tim usually telegraphed exactly what he wanted someone to do or not do and Connor could make decisions based on that. This Tim telegraphed nothing, and the last thing he wanted to do was make it worse.

“How was Damian involved?” Some part of Connor’s mind informed him primly that this was the wrong thing to say, you didn’t ask people to talk about horrible things immediately after they happened. He wasn’t the cops, couldn’t prosecute shit.

“Batman needs help. Might be losing his… a bunch of us were there. I got too close.” The heartbeat went from a bassline to a hummingbird and Connor took the next few steps to join Tim on the dais, kneeling. It occurred to him only then that his best friend hadn’t even stood up yet, but he couldn’t address that until Tim’s heartrate calmed down, which was something it had decided Not To Do. 

“I said something stupid,” Tim muttered. “He punched me. Nobody did anything for a—for a second until Damian…”

Oh God, the little shit had thrown fuel on the fire hadn’t he. He and Tim had never gotten along but Connor had thought he might get better with time. If clones could be salvaged, couldn’t baby assassins?

“Damian?” Connor prompted.

“I’d shown him how the watch worked when I first got there. He… he ran over, said I shouldn’t be here anymore, and hit the button.” Tim’s voice thickened with stress and his hand had dropped away from covering his face, seemingly without his noticing. “He sounded so scared. I’ve never heard him that scared.” 

“Tim—”

“He was scared for _me_ and I left him there!”

“You—”

“I have to go back.” Tim fumbled for the multiverse watch, hands trembling badly enough that Connor had the second he needed to grab Tim’s wrists.

“Wait, WAIT, Tim! Robin. Buddy, who else was there?”

The stupid lenses of the domino stared back at him but even without a readable expression, Connor could read breathing. An idiot could read Tim’s breathing and deduce his panic, which meant it was pretty damn bad. 

“Damian,” Tim said. Obtuse. 

“Yeah, and?” 

“Bru—you mean, you mean not B —u-uh… Batgirl, and Huntress, and Signal, and Orph—Cass, and… uhm…”

“Batgirl.” Connor knew of her. Tall, redhead, Dick’s ex. “Batgirl’s 21, right? Or older?”

“Why—”

“There’s adults in that group, right? Tim?” 

“…yeah?”

With anyone else, Connor would have yanked the watch off their wrist and pitched it across the room, because some people could not be trusted to make intelligent decisions. With Tim, he kept hold of the other’s wrists and said, firmly: “Then they will keep Damian safe.”

“But I’m—”

“His brother, but you’re also a kid.”

Robin stiffened at that, like Connor knew he would, and drew back as far as he could with Connor keeping hold of him. The movement brought his head up, all indignant and… oh. No bruising, it was too soon for that, but the shape of the closed-fist, the micro-cuts from the Bat-glove’s armoring, as well as the heat from blood rushing to the area – all that meant there would be no way to hide this from the team. Robin realized this at the same time, because he ducked his head, heartrate zooming back to the hummingbird pace and shit, Connor had felt enough shame in his short life to recognize it in Tim’s frame. 

“You can tell them I came back just long enough to tell you it was safe,” Tim said.

“’Cept it’s fucking not, obviously.” Connor released his wrists, taking the multiverse watch away in a bit of sleight of hand. Maybe Tim couldn’t be trusted after all. “Look. You’ve got something to get back to. Sure. But that’s not it.” 

“Steph’s waiting for me,” Tim said and there were entire conversations buried in that statement as well as the unspoken one: there had been a batmergency, Tim had crossed universes to get there, and Spoiler hadn’t come. It said a lot about whatever the hell was going on with Batman. 

“Then you’re getting back to her,” Connor said. “Not him. And not right this minute. Young Justice needs you here, getting us home.”

“Damian needs me.”

“He wouldn’t have shoved you out of a fight if he thought he was in danger. That sound like Damian? The same little shit who literally _wants you dead_, to hear you tell that story?” 

Robin’s expression crumpled and Connor breathed an internal sigh of relief. Trust Tim to trust in Damian’s hating him above all else. 

Another thing they could trust in above all else: Bart disobeying explicit instructions. Connor wished they had another minute or fifteen, but Impulse skidded into the receiving area, talking a mile a minute.

“I know you said you’d come get me but Jinny’s getting really upset about the elves wanting to touch her stuff and oh Robin’s back!”

Robin got up, dusting himself off and putting one hand to his head once upright in a pretty good impression of having a migraine. To Connor, the movement was as good as a telegraph of Robin’s next few moves. Tim would tell them the universe was right, he had just been dropped in the wrong area, and YJ would be honor-bound to help with this Quinnis vs. elves nonsense until everyone forgot he was acting strangely or he could claim someone clocked him in the face during the inevitable brawl.

“Was it the right universe?” Bart asked, mission on hold while he bounced on his toes with excitement. Tim nodded once, carefully.

“Wrong area, but the energy signatures were right.”

Connor’s assessment was two for three…

“Who are these elves?” Tim asked. “Do we need to do anything?”

And three for three. The question had also led Robin to look around for his bo, less glassy-eyed now, and caught off-guard by remembering the weapon was gone. Bart picked up on the absence too. 

“Dude, you lost your staff?”

“I—Like I said, wrong area. Knocked me off my feet.” 

All right, no, Connor drew the line at listening to Robin make vague half-joking allusions to this nightmare for the next several days. 

“Bart, they seem pretty advanced here. Wanna see if they have anything like Robin’s staff lying around?”

The moment Impulse was gone, Connor turned on Robin, who was already drifting towards the edge of the dais and corresponding exit of the Receiving area. 

“Tim, you’ve got to—”

“Get us home,” Tim interrupted. “That’s what I’m doing and Bat stuff is going to stay Bat stuff. Keli’s…” He looked ill for a moment. “Keli’s young.” _Younger than Damian_. “And the others will want to go after Batman and they’ve never even met him.”

“Plus, not like you want any kids around him right now.”

Tim stiffened and chose his next words carefully, his gaze fixed on the multiverse watch Connor still held. “No. I don’t. Because he’s hurting, and confused, and I don’t know what he’ll do and you won’t let me go back.”

“We can’t go back?” Cassie asked, returning with the rest of YJ in reluctant tow. Bringing up the vanguard was Bart, his arms wrapped around a javelin, long and heavy enough to qualify as a lance. Tim sighed when he saw it, but his reaction wasn’t what captured most of Connor’s attention. Cassie stopped dead in the entryway, looking like she had been struck instead of Robin.

“Robin? Everything okay?” she asked, watching Tim leave the dais to join Bart and examine the giant lance-like weapon. 

“Yeah?” Tim responded, doing an admirable impression of someone confused by the question. Was that all Robin did – cultivate impressions of what people wanted to see? The moment he touched the weapon, it turned into a replica of his bo, complete with nicks and modifications. 

His resulting faint smile was genuine, though he flinched as the motion affected damaged facial muscles and the expression disappeared. He went impassive and Cassie’s expression, already concerned, turned straight to alarm.

“Tim—” she began, the rest of the group coming to alert at the urgency in her tone. Tim’s heartrate picked up until Connor suspected that even the non-enhanced among them must have been able to hear it. No trace of Tim’s distress crossed his face. 

“Yeah?” Tim replied.

“…good to have you back,” Cassie said, diverting the dangerous path of conversation. “We were all a little worried we’d have to launch a rescue mission. Again.”

The pounding heartrate slowed, enough that both Connor and Cassie could stop worrying Tim would faint at any second. 

“Pretty sure that’s my line,” Tim said, giving the bo an experimental swing. It moved like his traditional weapon and Connor felt… relieved. Disproportionately relieved. In whatever way the team was going to address this, Robin shouldn’t be more vulnerable than he already was. 

“So who are we helping slash starting a war with now? And have we hidden Jinny’s truck?” Tim glanced over at Amethyst, who had occupied herself flipping through one of the brochures displayed in racks against the walls. Connor hadn’t done so because who cared about tourism, but he could see the aforementioned elves on the cover now. 

“More like _they_ hid my truck,” Jinny said. “So, way’s I see it, we’re kind of at war with whoever did that.”

“So, the elves?” 

“The elves are really a shape-shifting way for rogue Quinnis to do bad things.” Amethyst settled the brochures back into the rack. “It could be any one of them, or all of them.”

“Oh.” A hint of relief was audible in Tim’s voice. “What’s their government structure like?”

As the team devolved into explaining how the local equivalent of police were complacent about strangers’ belongings disappearing into the woods and how only idiots (like themselves) would have openly engaged with someone wearing elven skin, Connor noted the shift in Robin’s stance. 

He had no doubt that somewhere in the back of Robin’s mind, Tim was still focused on Damian. Wouldn’t relax until he knew Damian was safe, and that the others were safe, but he wouldn’t ignore his team. It was good that Tim could detach himself like that and prioritize – emotions were a last result – but Connor knew and he was almost certain Cassie knew.

#

Robin worked the case with them that day, talked his way into securing another multiverse watch, and left after dark. Connor wished the action surprised him. It didn’t surprise Cassie or Impulse, who were waiting when he skulked into the receiving area, the white stone floor lit solely by the twin moons’ light. Connor’s steps stalled. he stayed in the half-dark a second, wondering if he could… hell, preserve some of Robin’s privacy.

“What happened with Robin?” Cassie asked. “Everyone knows something happened.” She tilted her head back a little. “You saw him first. And privately.”

“Batmergency. It’s his… his story, kinda.”

“So it is the right universe.” 

“Yeah. As soon as we can get the truck, I think we’ll head back.” 

Impulse bounced a little on his heels, looking at the dais. “Should we, like, go after him? I’m happy to go after him, I can be good in Gotham, swear to keepsies, I totally can.”

“Nah. He doesn’t want Young Justice in this.” _He doesn’t want kids in this_.

“But—”

“Besides, what if it’s over by the time you show up and he’s just making out with Stephanie? ‘s a reality you gotta face, Bart. There will be smooching. Canoodling’s possible.”

It wasn’t hard to move the conversation from there to Impulse’s jibes about Connor ‘having a wife and baby’ for a minute which stung, but no more than usual. Lophi was probably doing fine. The baby would be fine. Connor wanted to go home. That was all.

#

Tim came back at the equivalent of 8 a.m. on the planet’s time, yawning, and stumbled out into an empty receiving chamber. Good. The morning light shone off the polished floors, broadcasting their difference from Gotham’s malevolent streets, and he tried to appreciate that. He wasn’t in Gotham. Whatever parts of Gotham were here were ones he’d dragged along, like being soaked to the bone.

When Connor appeared, peeling himself off of one of the walls like a sentient shadow, he didn’t have energy for much more than a lackluster wave.

“You didn’t have to wait.”

“You ran off home without inviting anyone. Again.” Connor didn’t bother with subtlety, which was fine because he was crap at it, and adopted that ‘faintly concentrating’ expression that meant he was using x-ray vision, as well as scanning Tim’s face and exposed arms for additional injuries. Why the hell had Tim chosen this uniform, where anyone would see everything? He comforted himself with the knowledge that it was better than Dick’s uniform, better than Jason’s uniform. It was due for a redesign though – something without the damn short sleeves and too-thin armor plating in the chest.

“I had to see Damian,” Tim said, keeping his voice low as they headed for the exit. “Make sure he was all right.” 

No response. They headed out of the transit station and in the direction of the dormitories the Quinnis had set them up in the night before. The planet in general, and this city in particular, was used to multidimensional travelers and had a dizzying array of accommodations within the single building. Stepping into the wrong room could, unfortunately, lead to stepping into null space, or having one’s atoms dangerously compacted, or DNA structure being rewritten as goo. If the elves had managed to hide Jinny’s truck in one of these rooms, they could be stuck here a long, long time. 

“Has it just been a day here?” Tim asked, as they stepped out into the sunlight. The dormitories were several buildings over, through an overgrown field of grass and this world’s dandelion-ish equivalent, and he concentrated on not sneezing.

“Just the night.”

“Oh.” It had been a week in Gotham. Time dilation was… more than Tim could have hoped for and _far_ more than he wanted to share with Connor right now. The other would freak out at the idea that Tim had stayed in Gotham a week without even checking in with them, and then explode at the parameters of what Tim’s week had been like.

“Time work differently there?” 

Tim’s head jerked up. Connor tapped his own cheek meaningfully. 

“It’s a lot more faded than it should be,” he said in explanation.

“Oh, uh… yeah.” 

“Hn.”

Tim gave it a minute. 

“You don’t seem… mad,” Tim tried, when the silence continued, broken only by the sounds of their feet on the path.

“I am beyond mad,” Connor said. Tim knew that voice, the clinical detachment that he had cultivated in his own whenever events were too much. It was startling to hear it in Connor and he wished he had the energy to be empathetic. 

“So where the hell is Batman now?” Connor shouldered open the door to the dormitories.

“I don’t—Bane was driving him mad. Thomas Wayne – a psychotic Thomas Wayne, from the multiverse – is helping Bane. Gotham Girl too. She used to be an ally of ours. Batman is gone. No one knows where.” Tim felt the evasion building up in the back of his throat, a pressing need to be out of this conversation, and fought it. “Damian wants to go back into the city. I told him not to, I’ve told him… but he might do it anyway.”

“What about all the people who were there? Batgirl and Huntress and them.”

“Apparently, after the… that night, a lot of them want nothing to do with Batman.” 

He wished he could see it as touching, something done in his own defense. All it had really done was leave Damian adrift, without Wayne Manor, without access to Alfred, or any member of the family; all of them dispersed to their independent dilemmas. Tim had stayed in Gotham for a week because Young Justice had leadership and would survive his absence. Damian might not.

Tim changed the subject: “If you spent all night waiting up for me, you probably came up with a plan to get the truck back.”

“You’re not going to like it.” 

He probably wasn’t, but it beat Connor staying on the idea that Tim should tell the rest of Young Justice what had happened in Gotham. Maybe he could skip it altogether; he’d almost pulled that off with the death of his father and that was a _much_ bigger deal than this.

_Are you trying to pretend this _doesn’t_ feel like losing a parent?_

“Probably not. Tell me anyway.” 

#

Robin didn’t end up liking the plan (which involved a tech heist, getting close to people who might not know anything useful, and driving the recaptured truck through the building) – which was fine, because it didn’t work anyway. It took a total of two days to resolve the truck issue. 

In those two days, Robin didn’t bring up Gotham once. Despite clear evidence that the Young Justice team all knew something was going on with Robin, no one said anything within Connor’s considerable earshot. Everyone kept their heads down, tried to be polite to the Quinnis, and Robin did that thing where he tried not to make any real expressions at all. 

Once the truck was back in hand, they had no reason to hang around. 

They politely said their goodbyes– too politely, in Connor’s opinion, since most of the aliens had been distinctly unhelpful – and Jinny drove the truck onto a lowered form of the dais. One of the towering entities stood by the far wall, programming coordinates into a complex embedded panel. For multiple or cargo transports, they explained, they could beam coordinates directly to the transport dais, which would transport everything on its preapproved area of transfer. They had done it a thousand times, they claimed. Again, ‘perfectly safe, perfectly safe’ assurances filled the air, about as convincing as a carnival worker who had no idea how the ride they operated worked. 

Amethyst stepped up onto the dais with trepidation, sword in hand. She had had nightmares all the preceding night and was dead on her feet. ‘There is an ill omen about this trip,’ she murmured to Jinny, who shrugged. Robin waved the princess into the shotgun position next to Jinny, Keli and Impulse already in the backseat, and joined Cassie and Connor in the truck bed. 

Connor lifted an eyebrow when Robin stayed standing, the bo-shaped weapon in hand. Battle stance – as if something would be waiting to attack the moment they arrived. 

“You gonna hang on to something or just wait to be flung out?” Connor asked. Robin blinked and shifted to a crouch, gripping the side of the truck. 

“Right.” Quieter. “Right.”

The dais activated, pulsing faintly, and Connor felt the familiar lurch of his stomach as the team went incorporeal. Robin had once bored all of them with a half-absentminded/half-panicked musing on whether or not repeated multiverse travel would affect their ability to ever return to their own universe. Connor had asked him, nicely, to shut the hell up while they were still trapped in an environment where they would have to keep doing it to get _home._

Plus, he tended to remember the rant at times like this. Then he had to hope his super-smart friend wasn’t right this time and they wouldn’t be grotesquely trapped between dimensions outside of time. Now he was thinking it. Damnit, Tim needed to not say crap like that when other people were around. 

They dropped out of the multiverse onto Earth-3. 

Well, it wasn’t home, but at least there was a fight waiting.

# 

Tim’s memories of Earth-3 were fragmented, not least because of the lingering concussion from the run-in with the Clapper Snappers and his alternate self. He knew shreds about Earth-3; the place was formerly run by the Crime Syndicate, then abandoned. There were people trying to kill them, which was nothing new, but they had no intel on who and how people would try to kill them. The _constant stream_ of people trying to kill them, some of them wearing the faces of Young Justice team members, that was new.

Then Stephanie was there. 

He could chalk most of the mental fragmentation up to that (and nearly getting shot in the head). Stephanie was there, and she was Batwoman, and she was good, but she called him Drake and Impulse called him Drake and Damian had always called him Drake. The worst parts of his life were tied to Damian calling him Drake. Right now, the entire world seemed to be a swirling mass of things connected to Damian and what was happening in Gotham, where they weren’t. 

But he could fix that: Tim had stolen one of the multiverse watches from the Quinnis. After five attempts of having other people try to arrange transport, he wasn’t waiting anymore. Young Justice waited and worried as he pulled the device apart in Stephanie’s Batcave (God, he loved this place, the weaponry and the colors and the steampunk vibe, the fact that this Stephanie had such autonomy and comfort in her own space), back-engineered the tech, and integrated a version into the truck’s engine. 

It did take hours, in which time Stephanie called him Drake no less than six times and Impulse called him it twice. Connor sidled over – the only one who could withstand the blast if Tim screwed any of this up – and leaned against the truck.

“Don’t lean on that.”

Connor kept leaning. The others hovered at his insisted-upon distance of thirty feet. 

“If you’re really going to be known as a male duck, you’re gonna have to change your uniform colors, Rob.”

Tim stayed focused on the deconstruction of the watch. “First, it’s not a duck. Second, I haven’t promised anything. Third, I need to redesign the uniform anyway.”

“The hell do you mean, ‘not a duck’? Batwoman googled it, just in case we were pretending there was any other meaning and nah, it’s a frigging duck. And I mean, there’s some dangerous stuff about them but you’re not gonna want to associate yourself with—”

“It’s a dragon.” Focus on the task. Get home. That’s all there is. 

Connor wasn’t deterred by the flat answer. He did stop leaning on the truck, if only to adopt a skeptical pose and expression.

“People are never gonna think of a dragon. And why not use ‘Dragon’? No one else is, right?”

Tim going by Dragon. Wouldn’t that just send Damian up a wall with jealousy. “It’s like choosing to be known as Velociraptor rather than T-Rex.”

“But is anyone _using_ T-Rex? Important questions.”

“I haven’t decided anything, Superboy.” Impulse could call him anything he liked, but until Gotham was safe, until he knew Damian had stayed out of trouble, Tim couldn’t think of anything else, especially not something which would cause further ripples throughout the family. Damian, the little gremlin, needed the family. Jason had been effectively kicked out, Ric wouldn’t talk to them, and who knew what the others had done, aside from vanish. They were supposed to be a family—

_don’t think about that_

Putting the finishing touches on the hodge-podge device, Tim connected it to the truck’s engine. He could feel Jinny’s eyes on him as he did. Rightfully so. Assuming the entire vehicle didn’t explode the moment Jinny fired it up, one of Stephanie’s tablets would display a readout of multiverse entry points, based on a scrape of Tim’s DNA. Tim gave himself 89% odds that it wouldn’t blow up. Odds that the readout would come through successfully were somewhere around 43%, give or take the nightmare of the day. 

Then, and only then if everything worked, they could designate the preferred universe. The truck would consider everything composing and within the truck’s preprogrammed radius, with majority matching of Tim’s universe-specific energy signature, as being transportable. With luck, it wouldn’t miscalculate and rip open a black hole when they vanished, or try to leave behind the parts of them that had traces of other energy signatures, or all manners of other hell.

No, they hadn’t fixed this world’s evils, but sometimes, all they could do was leave safely. Tim slammed the hood shut and chanted that word quietly to himself: Safely. Safely. Safely.

Keli circled the truck, catching sight of his mini-mantra and unstable posture before Tim could hide it. Teen Lantern blinked at him for a moment before glancing at the hood, her expression unreadable. 

“You want a second opinion?” 

He’d—he’d forgotten. “Oh.” He reopened the hood, shaking his head a little in self-admonishment. “Yeah, I guess hacking a power battery would qualify as sufficient experience.”

He began walking her through the device’s construction. She remembered as much about the multiverse watches as he did and several pieces that he had either forgotten or not put together as connected concepts. Together, they made several changes and he tried not to let the frustration show on his face – he should be able to protect them, he should’ve remembered what was said about the multiverse watches, he shouldn’t need to rely on the youngest of their party to support his mistakes. 

Keli looked up from a final adjustment, noting again his expression, and pushed up the welding goggles. “You almost got shot in the head, Robin. I didn’t, so I can just focus a little better right now. That’s all.” She returned to the work. He let her. 

By the time they finished and slammed the hood shut, he felt their odds had improved.

“You think it’s going to work, Drake?” Stephanie asked, once the noise of the hood slam had stopped echoing in the cavernous space. 

“With Keli’s help, I give us good odds,” Tim said, making sure to look at Jinny as he did so. People trusted Robin to tell the truth. He didn’t, usually, but people trusted him to and honestly, with Keli’s help, it did feel a little closer to true. 

They piled in, Jinny driving and Tim reclaiming the shotgun seat, while the younger members squeezed in the back and Cassie and Connor rode in the truck bed. Jinny twisted the key in the ignition, and, though Tim’s heart thudded in his chest a few moments, the engine didn’t explode. The tablet even lit up. 

Jinny passed to him with one hand, leaning out the window to ask Stephanie if “y’all got a USB cord in here somewhere? The battery’s awful low.”

Tim scanned through the options, discarding the residue universes they had already visited and flat-out ignoring Impulse, who had begun to protest that he wanted to go back to Captain Carrot’s universe, just for a half hour. When all the short-term exposure universes had been set aside, there was their universe, represented as a single strand of continuity amid what would otherwise be a tapestry of options. He handed it to Keli for a cross check. It took her a moment but finally she nodded: as close to an informed second opinion as they could get right now.

“This is us.” He showed Jinny the relevant strand. “Right here.”

“Fire it up then.” Jinny glanced around the driver’s console. “Unless ya need me to do anything? Turn off the air conditioning or somethin’?”

“Ah, no, we should be fine.” Tim selected the universe, plugged in the coordinates for the universe and began calibrating for exact location and time. Batman had made him memorize several points, local and international, for this precise type of event. Time was trickier, and he was so engrossed he nearly missed Jinny’s grin.

“Good, I’d hate to have to build an air conditioning unit jus’ to turn it off for your gadget.”

The last thing he saw on Earth-3 was Stephanie – Batwoman – watching them with melancholy. Damnit. He should have told her she was doing a great job and that it took a tremendous toll on Batman to be everything to a city and that it rarely felt like winning.

When they rematerialized in a Wayne-owned patch of soybean farmland, six miles out of Bludhaven, that felt like winning. Tim checked his newly-functioning phone and found that it was only three days after the last time he had left. That felt like winning… everything.

After the obligatory several minutes to get out, gain their bearings, and universally agree it was their universe, Jinny sat back in the driver’s seat, one boot braced against the open door. She flicked on the headlights, illuminating acres of soybeans. Beyond that, storm clouds layered the night sky above distant Gotham, blocking out stars, but this was home and Tim was used to it. 

“All right,” Jinny began. “Now, we still gotta figure out—”

“I have to go.” Tim stood towards the rear of the truck, arms folded. “I can arrange any transportation or lodging you need, but I have to get back to Gotham, as soon as possible.”

Not Gotham, he couldn’t go to Gotham, but Gotham… near. He had already sent an encrypted text Damian, Barbara, Alfred, the network – anyone who might know what had happened. No response yet. He hadn’t tried Bruce. It wasn’t just getting punched, it was… he hadn’t signed up to work with a volatile, extremely powerful vigilante who might turn on him in a moment of calm. The idea made him flinch and he _could not flinch_ in the field. Some dry part of his mind whispered with Earth-3 Drake’s voice that a dragon wouldn’t flinch at anything. 

Cassie leaned over the edge of the truck bed, her expression of concern faintly outlined by the interior lights of the truck. “Do you need backup?”

“No. Not if I don’t know what’s happening. Do any of you need—”

“We got it, Robin,” Connor said. “Call for help if you need it.” 

He went.

#

In between homecomings and the messy network of connections that was his existence, Connor caught up on the news, over the next week. He discovered Gotham wasn’t imperiled so much as _consigned_. No one wanted to touch it, the President had declared it off limits to supers, and Batman was nowhere, literally nowhere to be found. Suspicious as hell, in Connor’s opinion, but his texts to Robin about the same went unanswered. Bats weren’t allowed in Gotham; he had no idea what the hell his best friend was doing if not answering his phone.

Finally, he ‘popped by.’ Dark skies hung overhead, like Gotham’s surrounding area had been infected by the cancer of the city and buckets of rain beat against the rooftop where Robin stood. Standard Gotham, standard Bats. Connor dropped next to him, checking the other’s twitchy posture and tightly gripped staff. 

“ ’sup?” he asked. “You look like hell.”

He explicitly did not say ‘so, I heard your heartrate spike from sixteen blocks away, something crappy musta happened, so ‘sup, you look like hell.’

“They have Damian.” There was a tenseness about Tim’s grip on the bo-shaped weapon, as if he didn’t know what to do with it other than use the staff to keep himself up.

“How?” Connor asked.

“He broke into the city, took out Gotham Girl because… because I told him he couldn’t. It’s my fau…” The thought broke off. “He took out… her, and fought Thomas Wayne and lost and, and then, they killed Alfr…” His grip on the bo tightened until the weapon’s form fractured. The material went goopy and Robin had to loosen his grip, watching it drip onto the rooftop. His expression didn’t change. He kept staring, long after it was practical to do so.

“Bane killed him. Because Damian trespassed into Gotham.”

“Tim—”

Robin went silent, hand clenching and unclenching at his side now that the weapon had vanished. Normally, this was where he would launch into a plan or start brainstorming or pulling a micro-computer out of damn thin air, but Connor had seen this before. When he was leaving the Titans and all Red Robin’s pleas had been ignored and emotion was all that was left. 

Tim took a shaky breath. “I’ve gotta go get him.”

“Your city’s off limits.”

“I’ll—I have to try.”

“You’ll get him killed. This is a bad—”

“_We’re all dead anyway._” The words were hushed but the tone urgent, as much of a shout as he seemed capable of without breaking. “Batman isn’t coming back. The villains are running the city. If someone doesn’t try to save Damian, they’ll eventually hand him over to someone who will take their time killing him. The Joker would love to have another Robin on hand.”

“Think I can kick Bane and Wayne’s ass?”

The rain nearly drowned out Tim’s response: “If he’s taken over the manor, they probably have the Kryptonite Batman had. Gotham Girl may have recovered now and the more damage she takes, the stronger she gets. They took out Captain Atom. I’m not sending you into that.”

“Shit.” Connor gave it a second. “You got a plan?”

“No.” 

Yeah, that was about what he had expected from someone standing on the edge of a roof, staring out at a forbidden city and wearing that level of haunted expression. He nudged the other’s shoulder. 

“You get to go when you’ve made a plan. Not when you decide everybody’s dead and hasn’t figured it out yet. Got it?”

Robin seemed about to protest, shoulders tight and shuddering, glaring at the gooey mess on the rooftop, before he took a breath. Touched the puddle. Reformed the staff. 

“As soon as there’s a plan.”

“And you call me before charging in. You call the _team_ before charging in. Ducks don't work alone.”

“Dragons do.”

“Yeah, and you know where that got that badass Smaug in the movies. YJ's got your back, Tim. The government mighta handed off this place but you want it and the gremlin back, so that's where we'll be.”

“...all right.”

#

Three days after Damian was taken, Batman returned. Not only returned – returned in good health, returned to Tim’s working base of operations in the abandoned penthouse of an equally abandoned Bludhaven apartment complex. Ordinarily, he would have had more options, but coming back from being trapped in the multiverse after being dead, after being preoccupied in Gotham meant some of his out-of-city properties had… languished. 

His first signal that someone was visiting was the sensors on the roof pinging. The new uniform – the product of a single missed night of sleep – was faster to gear up in. No capes now and the bo reformed the minute he touched the built-in pocket. Convenient. He still grabbed a waterproof jacket on his way out the door. The suit was still in early stages and didn’t retain heat as well as its namesake yet (or repel water as well as its other namesake, depending on who you talked to).

He moved stealthily onto the roof and stopped dead at the familiar silhouette. Thomas Wayne’s Batman stood a bit taller and had somewhat heavier armored shoulder pads. This Batman stood at the edge of the rooftop, facing Gotham, undeterred by the sprinkling of rain; a powerful figure overlooking a stolen kingdom, Tim’s mind helpfully supplied.

How did one greet someone like that? Batman always knew everything, did he know what had been happening? Did he know about Damian? 

Batman must have noticed the difference in, who knew, the pattern of the rainfall around Tim’s jacket or something, because he turned.

“Red Robin.” Batman turned towards Tim. Healthy, tan, the pale strip above his upper lip suggesting that he had been undercover as Matches Malone. When Batman stepped forward, Tim could trace the hesitation in his step and its motivations: Batman was here for intel, they hadn’t left each other on good terms and yet Tim, for better or worse, had the intel. Tim steadied his footing and folded his arms to pull the unzipped jacket a little closer. It felt unbearably immature to do this now but… he had switched costumes. And names. He never expected to have to explain it to Batman when he had already decided he had left Gotham.

“It’s Drake,” he said.

“What?” The word came in the trademark Batman growl and might as well have been ‘what are you babbling about now?’

“I changed the name.” 

Batman was visibly caught off-guard. In his vision’s periphery, Tim spied Selina, puzzled and pacing the wall of the roof, some three feet above and ten feet away from them. Keeping an eye out for assailants, no doubt. Her surprise meant that she hadn’t been keeping up with her contacts in town; she had fled after Bruce because they loved each other and staying apart was devastating. 

Like Tim had said and consequently been told that he didn’t know a damn thing about love. 

“You’re not going by Red Robin?” Batman asked. Perhaps some of his brain was still on vacation time.

“No.”

“Are you sure you’ve… thought that through?” Batman asked. “What did Penny-One say?” 

Tim’s reply stuck in his throat. It wasn’t just Selina being out of touch with her contacts: _Bruce didn’t know._ Of course he didn’t, he needed Tim to give him the intel; that was what he kept Tim around for when the Manor was occupied by the man who was taking everything from them. He swallowed the pain. Channeled the redheaded version of himself that Bart insisted on calling him, even after they left the hellish multiverse. Channeled _Drake_.

“Bane killed Penny-One,” he said, voice flat to his own ears. “Because Robin broke into Gotham.” 

Batman’s face went dark – dark enough that Tim was glad he stood several feet away. “And Robin?”

“Still in Gotham.” 

“No rescue then.” Recrimination bone-deep in the voice: you tried nothing.

It felt like leeches bleeding his tone dry, trying not to feel sick or a failure all at once. “There’s a plan. If I attempt a rescue and fail in it, they’ll kill him and take me hostage. Possibly.” Or they would kill him and keep Damian. What better lure than his blood son to get the big fish back into Gotham?

_Certainly not the replacement,_ an echo chanted in his head and God, he didn’t want to be here. Taking on the name Drake, as much as he hated it, was supposed to help him _break_ from Bruce. Instead he just felt like breaking.

“It’s all right.” Batman’s gaze drifted in the direction of Selina. Private plans. “We’ve made progress. We’ll be able to strike hard at Bane.”

“You risk killing Damian,” Tim pointed out.

“He won’t kill Damian.”

“Well, Damian didn’t think he’d kill Alfred.” Damian hadn’t thought so much, hadn’t thought he’d be caught, hadn’t thought they would kill, hadn’t thought they would keep him as a second hostage. 

Tim knew this specifically because of Thomas Wayne. The night Damian had been taken, Wayne lost no time in finding Tim in Bludhaven, knowing which of the safehouses Tim would gravitate towards with a precision that bordered on the actual Batman’s surveillance and detective skills. Tim had come up, in the Red Robin gear, that night, and encountered the Other Batman. Wayne had asked if he had a phone. Tim did. Wayne sent him the video and waited, throughout the full 1.07 minutes, while an on-screen Damian snarled and swore at everyone for being cowards, followed closely by swearing he needed no rescue.

There had been no reason to record a video. Tim would’ve believed them if they said they had Damian. They had no need to lie, or threaten, or demoralize what few Bats hovered on the outskirts of Gotham. When his enemy was homeless and sufficiently hobbled, Bane didn’t even need to flip the deadbolt on the Manor door. Like Gotham’s villainous police department these days, the video was malicious. Targeted and overkill. And Wayne had come in person to be sure that Tim would watch it, a clinical curiosity if the sight would cause a reaction. 

Tim didn’t give him the satisfaction, careful to look up with a neutral expression and ask if a video was really necessary. 

‘You’re the drone,’ Wayne told him. ‘You like to think you act on logic. Logically, if Bane will kill Alfred, and my grandson is captured in his stead, you know there’s nothing stopping Bane from killing him. Communicate that message.’

To be candid, Wayne had said, it had been convenient to have Tim thrown away in the effort of breaking Bruce. He would have preferred a fatal blow, but it was, again, convenient to have Tim around to report on the message. Though: ‘If you attempt a rescue, I won’t promise we’ll keep you.’

Now, here on the same roof, Tim reported only that he had confirmation of Damian’s capture. Batman didn’t lean on him for more information, shifting his attention to Selina.

“Cat. Who’ll come?” Batman asked. Selina stopped her pacing and adopted a thoughtful expression.

“Well, I’ve been a little busy with you, Bat. Travelling abroad and all that. What happened to your army?”

Batman’s gaze turned to Tim. “Who’ll come, Red Robin?”

“Drake.”

“What?”

“Drake. And I’ve been stuck in the multiverse for months. Before that, I was dead. My usual contacts may be dead too. I imagine you can try to contact anyone who came last time with the red light. Expect fewer.” He turned to go, aware of how exactly how petty he sounded and beyond caring. Bat and Cat had secret plans to destroy Bane and hadn’t bothered to make sure an army was still on Batman’s side. Tim’s plan needed work but, unlike theirs, his wasn’t going to depend on blind and betrayed allegiance. Part of him wanted to defer to theirs and part screamed to remember what happened last time he rushed in, full of belief.

“We’ve all nearly died. We’ve all been betrayed. Thomas Wayne… wanted to give me what I’ve… never had.” Batman’s voice went from gravel and command to a strange quiet. He tilted back his head a little, in a way Tim had never seen before, and murmured a line of what sounded like poetry. Selina answered in an equally indecipherable voice. How nice for them. Tim hadn’t seen Stephanie in months, because to tell her he could come back and be what they were when Damian was captured was… irresponsible. He needed to be responsible. His thoughts ignored this and clawed their way out as words. 

“Thomas Wayne is not your father. He shouldn’t have had the opportunity to betray you.”

“You don’t—”

“If you tell me, again, that I don’t understand, it’s the last conversation we’re going to have, Bruce. Bane has toyed with you. _Broken_ you. And maybe it wasn’t your choice to leave after the fight at the manor, but you damn well could have told Damian you were alive.” Tim was saying things, he hadn’t meant to say things; saying things was a gateway to saying things that meant something.

“Damian knew,” Bruce said.

“He… he what?”

“I sent him in. When Alfred confirmed that he was all right.”

Blood pounded in Tim’s ears. Part of it processed as normal (‘ah, he sent Damian in, so he feels guilty about getting Damian captured’) and part of it went wildly off-track (‘I didn’t rank enough to tell’). He had to line up his next words as if preparing to throw a dart in a crowded bar. 

“If you need data, you can beg Oracle. She’s operating south of Gotham, nowadays.”

“Do you want an apology? What can I say to atone for that?”

Tim had been moving back towards the window, the question made his stride slow. 

“I don’t know, Bruce.” 

The ‘processing as normal’ part of his mind said to tell Batman that if he rescued Damian successfully, maybe they could talk. If he apologized and asked for Tim’s support and behaved like something other than a bereaved manager dealing with recalcitrant employees, maybe they could work together to help Damian. But, even looking at them together, there was no need. 

Bat and Cat had a plan. Bruce believed in the plan and now that he had love on his side, he would be unstoppable. ‘Processing as normal’ said that was healthy and good for him to have the romantic love he craved, resolving the pain ripped open by being abandoned. ‘Off-track’ said that Bruce’s love for anyone not related by blood or the sheer merit of being Alfred Pennyworth was conditional as hell and couldn’t be trusted. Shouldn’t be trusted.

Thus paused, he looked back at Selina and could see that she knew it too. Selina knew everything in an instant; she acted based on what was going to be best for her and now, that sphere of personal safety extended to the Bat. Maybe, at one time, it had included the family as well, but Tim hadn’t been around for that time of unrestrained family trust and bonding. Catwoman shifted her positioning on the building ledge, keenly assessing the Bat and Tim’s positions. 

“Bat?”

“Hn.”

“I think you’ve hurt this one.” 

Batman looked over at him again. There was that look living in his eyes, when he thought he was hiding his frustration with the complexity of human emotions, mixed with tinges of resignation. 

“Then I’m sorry. I was upset. You were right, obviously I do… love her. But Bane has taken over the city. My home. He’s kidnapped my _son_, Drake. You know how hard we fought to get Damian back. I can’t let Bane have another moment of power over him.”

And now it hurt, in a way he hadn’t expected. Now, Tim regretted the name, because it put Batman on Damian’s side – always a Drake, never a Wayne – and it felt like a psychological dagger he had forged and shoved into Batman’s hands.

“You sent your son in there,” Tim said. “Knowing what he faced.” 

“He was equipped.”

“And a child, and alone.” He looked to Selina, crouched gracefully on the sidelines to watch their discussion. “Do you need my help with your plan?”

She shook her head; while he would be welcome backup, they didn’t need him. Tim nodded once to her, glanced at Batman, and headed for the window.

“Let me know how it works out. I don’t want to have to pan through every CCTV feed in Maui to discover that’s where you’ve taken the family. Or miss Alfred’s funeral.”

“You don’t think I’d tell you?” Batman asked.

“I don’t. But then again, I don’t know a damn thing, do I, Bruce?”

Inside the penthouse, there was blessed silence. Tim waited until the two figures on the roof had gone before he started breaking things.

** _#Some time later, after the invariably won war for Gotham...#_ **

Planes were so much different than swinging over Gotham. Tim had flown locally, cross-continent, and internationally. He’d flown planes and been flown, voluntarily and involuntarily, in planes, plus helicopters, metahumans, spaceships, and other pseudo-vehicular transport. This time, he was flying out of Oakland to Hong Kong to meet up with Cass, following an insufferably boring job interview. 

Quitting W.E. had left a bright gleaming star on his resume, which meant endless nationwide interviews while people headhunted his time and brain. 

This was a daylight flight, though the sun would be setting soon. The plane hadn’t yet reached cruising altitude over the clouds and, below, the water fell further and further away. They had started out close to the ocean, so close that Steph had gripped his hand a little at the proximity and made a joke about not remembering which one was the flotation device. 

Up close, the water was defined by its interruptions, especially near the shore: buoys, boats, the offshore windmills. They became rarer as the plane moved and rose over the water, whitecaps becoming waves and waves becoming ripples in a vast tapestry. It moved, but… imperceptibly. Tim felt like maybe someone could drop him into it and there wouldn’t be a splash so much as a gravity well, the world bending around him. He wouldn’t even break the surface tension.

Steph leaned forward a little, looking at him. She spoke quietly, loud enough for him alone to hear. 

“Do you know you’re crying, Tim?”

He hadn’t. 

She moved to get a glimpse out the window, but they were entering the clouds now, the water masked from view, so she shifted back into her seat, still keeping a careful eye on him. He didn’t say anything and she let him not say anything for minutes. Maybe fifteen minutes. A long time for silence, and he started to tense up, feeling guilty for not explaining what was going on, why he had asked her on this trip aside from she and Cass were friends, how ulterior and selfish his motives had been—

She spoke, a countercurrent against his spiraling thoughts: “Do you want to hear how things went with my dad?” 

It was an offering. An opportunity to interact but not to talk; an opportunity to react and to care without having to take action, or justify, or fight someone and Tim loved her for making it. For offering him a role only he could fill. They would have to talk about Batman, eventually, but not now. He’d already apprised her of the situation: Bane and Wayne evicted, Damian and Alfred both fine (as it turned out), and the city firmly under the cape of its protector. Privately, Tim had made it clear to Damian that he would be on-world and available if anything… devolved, around his housing. Gotham didn’t need discussion.

“Yeah,” he said. His hand sought hers again. “Please.”


End file.
